The Pharmacist

Ally's friend, Julia, is not doing so well. When Julia is prescribed some medicine, the side effects are more than that.

Julia walked out of the doctor’s office, joining me in the waiting room. “What did the doctor say?” I asked.

She raised her arm and wordlessly help up a small sheet of paper. I reached over and took it. She looked down and closed her eyes.

“Let’s take care of this quick,” I said.

We paid the doctor, headed out to the car, ad drove off to the nearest convenient store. We made it to the parking lot, however there was a huge truck blocking the drive-thru. 

Julia sighed.  “Just go inside, Ally. Please be quick.” She placed her face in her hands.

I pulled the car in a shady spot, grabbed the prescription, and went inside. The store smelled of candy and pink was everywhere for Valentine’s Day. I made my way to the pharmacy section. I walked up to the pharmacist, a middle-aged man.

“Hello, my name is Henri. How may I be of assistance?”

“My name is Ally. I’m here to drop off a prescription for my friend, Julia Matthews.”

Henri turned to his computer. He typed as he said in a low voice. “Julia...Matthews.... Date of birth?” he asked without looking up.

“December 26, 1990,” I replied, handing over the paper.

He reached for it without moving his eyes. “Here we are. Julia Matthews. Dr. Kalai called ahead for the prescription. It is ready now. Let me go get it.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

He moved to the back and a few seconds later he came back with a bag. He placed it on the counter as I gave him my credit card to ring it up. He handed me back the card along with the receipt. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “Have an excellent day.”

“Thank you. You too,” I said as I placed the card, along with the receipt, back into my wallet and headed back to the car.

When we finally made it back to our apartment, I gave Julia her medicine.

The sun rose. It was a beautiful Thursday morning. I began to go through my morning routine. After I brushed my teeth, I made my way to the kitchen for breakfast. When I got there, Julia was already sitting at the table, drinking her hot tea.

I walked over to the cabinet and reached for a bowl. “Hey, how are you feeling?” I set the bowl down on the counter and reached to the right for the box of Honey Nut Cheerios. 

“I’m feeling better,” she replied.

I turned around and smiled at her while walking to the fridge. “That’s great the hear. Don’t forget, Ms. Lin is dropping by at noon-” 

I grabbed the edge of the counter before I fell to the floor. I regained my balance and looked down. Julia’s dog, Celia, was looking up at me apologetically. I crouched down to pet her. “It’s all right, Ce. I’m fine,” I told her and she began to wag her tail.

Behind me, I hear a band and a crash; I looked behind me. Julia was standing from her seat and leaning over the table, supporting herself with both arms. The floor srounding her was shattered glass. I rushed over to her and placed my hand on her shoulder. “Julia, are you okay?”

She slapped my hand away. “I’m doing just fine, thank you,” she hugged. She walked over to Celia, not caring about stepping on the shards of glass. Julia hovered over her dog who was looking up at her, wagging her tail. “Celia! How many times have I told you to stay out of our way?” She stomped her foot on Celia’s tail and she let out a whimper.

When she finally got free of her owner’s foot, she went to cower in the corner. I turned to Julia, who was walking out of the room. “Hey! What are you-?”

She turned around. “Leave me alone!” she snapped and left.

I leaned over Celia and scratched behind her ears, trying to assure her.

The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Julia called from the living room.

Ms. Lin, perhaps. I minimized the window on my desktop, locked the computer, pushed in the keyboard, and went to greet her. As I was walking down the hallway, I heard shouting, which made me rush to the front door.

“What’s going on?” I asked as I rounded the corner.

I stopped. At the doorway was Ms. Lin, lying on her back, propping herself up with her forearms, looking up at Julia in horror. She scrambled to her feet and began running towards the street. “Don’t you dare ever to come back here!” Julia shouted and slammed the door.

When she turned and saw me, she crossed her arms, avoided eye contact, and walked past me. I reached out, grabbed her arm, and forced her to turn around. “What are you doing?” I asked. “You’ve been acting weird since this morning,” I said.

She threw her arms up in the air, knocking my hand off. “Well maybe I’m having a bad day. Maybe I just want to be left alone, Ally. Ever thought of that?”

I watched her disappear into the hallway and I heard another door being slammed. Why was she acting weird? Now that I think about it, it could be a side effect of the medicine she took yesterday. I went to the kitchen, which had the closest phone in the house. I dialed the pharmacy and waited until a female voice greeted, “Hello, this is the pharmacy department. My name is Eliza, how may I assist you”

“Hello, Eliza. My name is Ally. I want ask a question to the pharmacist who was working yesterday.”

“That would be me. What is your question?”

I stayed silent for a moment. “There was not another pharmacist on duty yesterday?”

“Yes. I was the only one there yesterday.”

I did not like where this was heading. “Are you sure? The pharmacist’s name was Henri.”

“I apologize, miss. It’s true that a Henri had worked here before, but he was fired about a month ago.”

A-a month ago? “But he was there--and he said that Dr. Kalai called ahead and placed a prescription order.”

“Dr. Kalai did not call yesterday at all,” Eliza said. “Miss, you need to--”

The phone was knocked out of my hand before I could hear the rest of her sentence. I quickly turned around and saw Julia in a fighting stance, both her hands balled up into fists and in her right--a butcher knife.

I screamed. She stepped forwards and swung the knife. I leaned back, the knife only tearing my shirt and nicking off enough skin to make it bleed. I slipped past her and ran before  she drew back to swing again. I opened the storage door, grabbed the broom and held it up to guard.

“Come on, Julia. Stop it!”

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do!” She swung the knife again, this time with enough forced to break the broom. I threw the pieces on the floor and took off for the nearest room, which was the bathroom.

I slammed the door and fiddled with the lock. “Ally! Where are you?” Finally I got hold of the lock and turned it when something slammed against the door.

I took a step back.

“Ally!” She banged on the door. “Open up!”

Bang. Bang. Bang. Then, nothing. Nothing except for a soft scraping noise coming from the other side of the door. I reached out and placed my hand and ear against the door.

Scrape, scrape. Something grazed against my hand. I turned it over and examined it. Blood was gathering at the new cut. Was she scraping the door with that knife? I looked closer and found out that I was right. There was a thin line where my hand was.

My eyes widened. A thin-lined square appeared and was pushed out onto the floor.

Suddenly, I felt very cold.

I stared directly through the hole, studying it. “Ah!” I screamed and took a step back onto the rug, which slipped and caused me to fall. I quickly looked up to confirm what I saw. An eye was staring down at me. “Julia, please stop. You’re scaring me!” I cried.

Suddenly, I heard a loud crashing sound from the other side of the house. Then, another one, but on the other side of this door. 

“Police,” a firm voice said. “Please let us in.”

I slowly got up, keeping my eye on the opening. I opened the door, slowly and shaking. There were two officers who had subdued Julia and were walking away with her on a stretcher.

“Ma’am.”

I looked up. There was a third officer that I didn’t see. “Y-yes?”

“I’m Officer Jake,” he said, flashing his badge. “I would like to ask several questions.

We settled in the living room.

“Your name is Ally Greene, correct?” the officer asked.

I nodded.

He pulled out a pen and notepad. “We got two calls alerting us to your situation. Your neighbor across the street who said he heard you screaming when he was out jogging, and someone by the name of Eliza Lee.”

“Eliza Lee?”

“Yes.” Officer Jake flipped to a page. “Eliza was the first person to alert us. According to her, she was on the phone with you when she heard you scream and dropped the connection. Is this true?”

“Eliza? Oh yes, she was the person I was talking to for information on medication that a fake pharmacist gave my friend.”

“A fake pharmacist?” he flipped to another page. “Please explain further if you can.”

I relayed everything to Officer Jake that I could recall as he listened for and wrote down the important details. After I finished, he reread his notes. “Is that everything you know?”

I nodded. The doorbell rang. I turned to the officer and excused myself. I stood up and walked to the front door. When I opened it, a middle-aged woman stood there.

“Are you Ally?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“My name is Eliza. I was the one who spoke with you on the phone at the pharmacy.”

An overwhelming sensation came over me, I spread my arms and hugged Eliza, crying. “Thank you,” I sobbed.

“If I may interrupt,” Officer Jake said as he moved up to the side. “Ms. Lee, I need to ask you a few questions.”

The three of us walked back over to the couch. Officer Jake asked for information on Henri’s whereabouts. I listened closely. It turns out that he lives three blocks away from here. I made a mental note, knowing exactly where to go, and managed to sneak away.

I stood before Henri’s house. I walked up to the door and rang the doorbell.

No answer.

I rang again.

No answer.

So I decided to bang on the door repeatedly. I head a yell from the other side telling me to calm down and that they were coming. I stopped, but kept my hand into a fist. I heard the door being unlocked and opened. However, the person who had answered the door was not him.

“Excuse me, but does Henri Kaye live here?”

“Yes,” the man replied. “Let me introduce you to Master.”

Master?

“What is your name?”

“Ally,” I hesitated.

“Please come this way, Ally.” He gestured me to follow him and led me to what seemed to be an office.

“Master, there is someone here to see you. Her name is Ally.”

When Henri turned around, I felt the urge to punch him in the face.

“You,” I gritted my teeth.

“May I help you?”

“That’s all you can say after you poisoned my friend? What is wrong with you?”

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“Yes. I picked up a prescription for my friend at the pharmacy down the street. You are a fake, aren’t you?”

Behind me, I heard a click. I turned around and the man who had answered the door locked us in the room and blocked the exit. I turned back to Henri.

“Ah yes! Now I remember you. Is your friend any better?”

She’s on her way to a mental hospital.”

“How sad, another experiment waster,”

“What do you mean by ‘experiment’?”

Henri stood up from his chair and moved closer until he was about a foot from me. “You see, Ally is your name? I found a way to manipulate the human body and its mentality. The pill that I gave her releases a million nerve controlling nanobots. They are wirelessly programmed to obey me through a chip in my brain.”

I gave him a look. “So, what I hear you saying is that you admit you did the crime. Well, that will save time when the police get here. Which should be any minute now,” I said as I looked at my watch.

He put his hand under his chin. “Hm, well that’s a problem. I suppose I will have to speed things up.”

After he said that, I heard a loud bang from the floor. I looked around, trying to locate the sound. On my right side, I saw something move. I turned and saw a door that probably leads to the basement fly open. One by one, people climbed and joined Henri’s side. There were about fifteen.

Immediately I turned for the door, but the man still stood there. Before I could find another exit, something grabbed me by the arms and after that I felt something hard hit against the back of my head.

As I woke up, I felt sore. I could not remember what happened until my vision came into focus and I saw a big man smiling at me, brandishing a metal baseball bat. Behind him I saw another person in white clothing doing something at a table. As soon as he turned around, showing that he was Henri, I tried to move, but it was no use. I was strapped down. He came up to me holding something that flashed as it moved. I looked closer, but could not see what it was.

“Now, this will sting for only a moment,” he said.

I felt a prick in the middle of my arm. He was injecting me with the same mind-controlling poison in Julia’s veins.

Henri smiled down at me. “See? That wasn’t so bad. Time for a test-run.”

He removed the straps, freeing me from the table. He took a step away.

Obey me. His voice clear inside my head which turned slowly towards him.

Get up. My body responded. It set itself up to a sitting position.

Henri smiled. “That’s a good girl. Let’s test your strength.”

He reached inside his pocked and pulled out a Swiss Army knife. He handed it to me.

Face your enemy.

On cue, my body turned to face whoever I was suppose to fight. It was the man with the baseball bat.

Kill him.

My body went into a fighting stance. I don’t want to fight this guy. Henri’s the real enemy, I told my body, but it ignored me. It sprang forward, gripping the knife and held it out. I strained to regain control.

It slashed the knife at its enemy, then jumped up as the man ducked and swept his bat under its feet.

My head  became fuzzy, and I was losing all connections to my body. I need to trick my body into obeying me. It will only work once. I found all my mental energy to reestablish the bond between mind and body.

I was able to catch a glimpse of Henri in the corner of my eye. He was standing off to the side.

My arm slung backwards and--

“ACK!”

At that moment, I had complete control. I was free again. I turned around. My plan had worked. My hand, still wrapped around the knife’s handle, was almost coated in blood. I let go and looked down at Henri. “You have no right to control me. and you will never hurt anyone else ever again.”

He gritted his teeth, wincing from his pain. Then, he grinned. “You think... this is... over?” he wheezed a laugh. “It’s far... from over... my friend...”

He drew in his last breath and laid still.

“I’m... free? a voice behind me said. I turned around and it was the man I was fighting against. He looked at me and smiled. “I’m free! AGH!” 

A horrible piercing sound blasted through my ears. I fell to the ground, covering my ears. I opened one eye to see what was going on, only to find the other guy laying lifeless on the floor. The next thing I saw was a blinding flash, which faded to a complete darkness.

Author's Note

I accept any constructive criticism :)

Man, I've been working on this for almost a year. Feels great to just finish and get it out there.

Reviews

[Joe Walters]

The man below me is quite correct, the addition of a few details could really give your great story the power you need it too.

There are only a few specifics that I believe could use a little work, other than these, the story was realistic, thrilling, and attention grabbing.

The dialogue in here could be a bit more realistic, such as " come on, Julia. Stop it!" Seemed a bit more proper than one would imagine when getting chased with a butcher knife.
Even though I often commend those who don't focus on the physical appearance, I found myself secretly wanting the butler who called Henri "master" to have a creepy, troll-ish look.
One other comment concerning how the story rushed to finish, it seemed as if ally's breakage of the spell was a little too easy.

Other than these few minute corrections, I enjoyed the hell out of this story. It was one of the few on this site that actually invited me back after putting it down.

[Connor Samuelson]

This was a very good read and an interesting idea!

Just something I noticed is the pace of the story. You seem almost rushed to get the story written down and to complete it (I'm the same way too). Something that might help would be to describe more of the scene and let the reader know exactly what is going on. I know how it is when you are writing and you get caught up in the moment. There were just some parts where I was wondering how you got there, such as the fight scenes. If you add a little more detail and kind of drag them out a little bit more that might help readers get a better understanding of what the main character is going through. Just something that I noticed. Thank you for sharing!